Domestic Geek

This stupid ruling that made us lose our NY/LA stations is really pissing me off. I almost missed Medium tonight because I lost all my my timers when the stations went away. Fortunately CSI: New York was a repeat and I only missed the first 10 minutes of Medium, but this sucks. Thursday was always tricky even with both coasts to tape from. Looks like if I can't watch Supernatural live on the antennae, then I'll miss it totally. At least I can watch Ugly Betty on ABC's website. I really wish television would go totally "on-demand" and you could watch what you want when you want.

I love books, but I regret that I don't always have time to sit in a quiet, secluded area to read. A former owner of a pizza place I used to work at turned me on to audiobooks. Back then, I lived over an hour from work and used to drive home in the middle of the night. Listening to the books used to keep me company on that long, lonely drive home.

I've been wanting to get all the Harry Potter Audiobooks so that I could listen to them while I commute (got to keep that HP interest going while waiting for the final book 7 to be released), but we all know how cash poor I've been lately. It's also hard to justify spending all that money on an audio version when I have perfectly good hard copies in my bookcase.

Did you know that there are companies that rent audiobooks just like you can use Netflix to get movies? One of those is a company called Simply Audiobooks. In addition to renting audiobooks, you can purchase titles for download or receive hard copies for your library. This is definitely a service I'm going to start using soon.

I took a much needed blogging break yesterday. I spent the afternoon helping Marcus organize his office at work. I designed my Christmas card in my head, so I'm going to making those over the next couple of days so I can get them in the mail by early next week. If you want one, just send me your snail mail addy via email. Then I painted some more wooden balls for my crocheted popcorn garland. As soon as I do some posting here, I'm going to crochet while watching Ugly Betty on ABC's website. Since we lost our East/West coast stations from Dish Network on Thursday (all thanks to FOX, we later found out), there are just some shows I'm not going to be able to watch if they don't have them on their web sites. The senate has a bill to allow some "distant channel" services for some satellite subscribers, but even if it passes, Marcus and I won't be eligible. *sigh* That sucks. I really liked having the New York affiliates. Oh, well. We went ahead and downgraded out satellite package, as well. If only we could get rid of shopping channels, public interest and religious stations. That is over 30 channels right there that I will NEVER watch. What a waste. I really wish they would offer an a la carte type system, like pick 50 channels YOU WANT for $39.95 or something. Maybe someday.

I watched Easter Parade on TCM last night and am currently watching In The Good Old Summertime. I don't think in all of these years I've actually watched anything with Judy Garland in it except the Wizard of Oz. Is it me or was she not really that good of an actress? She seems so stiff and wooden. I know she had some severe psychological problems and took drugs. I don't know if that affected her acting. It's sad because she had such a wonderful singing voice. There was a scene last night where you could really see the sadness in her eyes and that wasn't acting.

It came to Marcus' and my attention that we will be losing our east coast/west coast network station packages on December 1. Even though, Dish Netowrk had something worked out, some stupid judge butted in and declared that they had to stop offering them. I've emailed my senators and congressman, but I seriously doubt they'll do anything to save them. How stupid! There is no way I'm going to be able to record all the shows I normally watch now. Who does it really hurt if I watch the NBC from New York or CBS from L.A. Don't give me that local advertising crap because I fast forward through commercials on every station. Besides, I watch plenty of TV with my attenae back in the bedroom where I can't FF. The only other solution is to eventually get another PVR, but we don't have money for that now.

The PINKS marathon is on SPEED tomorrow, November 23, 2006. You can get all the details at www.speedtv.com. I'm really excited to check it out. Like I said before, I love drag racing. I still can't imagine putting all that time and effort into building a fast car just to give it away if you lose the race.

Here's my ride, a 2003 Subaru Baja. I have no plans of ever Drag Racing in this baby, though...I'd lose her for sure. (Forgive the choppy video — Marcus' camera only takes 15 second movies!)



this post sponsored by Speedtv.com